The field of application of this process encompasses the capture of the shapes of an implanting site of a dental prosthesis, whether fixed or mobile and of its environment in order to make a prosthesis, by the volume analysis for a diagnosis of part of the mouth, the capture of the shape of other parts of the body by the analysis of any part of the human body whose diagnostic and/or the associated therapy require its visualization as computerized images, and the capture of any shape with a view to making a prosthesis such as a hip, auricular, ocular, knee, finger and other joint prosthesis.
The capture of medical impressions are known to be made by means of a paste in dentistry, open surgical impression in the medical field, by micro-palpation, or by three-dimensional optical methods using, for example, ionizing radiations (photogrammetry, stereoscopy or interferential methods such as holography) or by the receipt of messages (NMR or ultrasound).
Methods of making an impression by means of pastes are time-consuming and require great skill from practitioner techniques such as photogrammetry and often are not sufficiently precise. Other techniques such as holography, are very complex and costly to implement, and sometimes provide performances which are better than may be strictly necessary for the particular object.